Here I am to _________* again. My electric bill is $70 more than it was this month last year, and I only used 935 kWh, same as last year. The rate automatically went from .125 to .189 with no notice & 2 weeks to pay it without a penalty. Glad I knew that my year long rate contract was up. I locked in a rate this month. Next month it'll be .159 kWh. Oh, what a relief, she said sarcastically.

I'm not a family of 4 in a house. One can only guess what folks using 3,000 or 5,000 kWh are gonna pay this month in TX. Actually we could compute it. WOW! 3,000 kWh = about $560 semolians and 5,000 kWh = about $900 clams. Car gas is $4.00/gal. Ohhh, I'd say that this is a RECESSION.

I hope the political folks see this as I am one of the little, We the People.

*
South = fuss
North = bitch

Nah, Bobbi, these days *='bitch' in the South, too. Aren't you glad you live in a state that has lots of oil and natural gas and therefore the energy costs are low? (We still have the oil and natural gas, but no longer the lower rates, hence the change in lexicon.) We're sweatin' with you. Heck, you might as well go to Okemah!

Man, I feel for ya. Our electric bill has gone up. Due to using AC this summer. Yikes...

We just got a notice last week, letting us know that this next month, Dominion VA Power is raising our rate by 18%!! That's a LOT!!!
A little here, a little there...I've seen costs for basic services go up tremendously in the past six months or so...locally,the fees for water and garbage removal are way up, and now now electricity joins them. Everyone is suffering from the cost of gas, grocery stores have raised prices.

Just wait until you get $1000 monthly heating oil bills this winter... You might start sleeping in the car...

Glad we're not on Dominion but on REA the rural power. Hope they don't go up anymore. Glad we have well water & don't have to pay for what God gives us for free...

I hear you with everything going up and up it's just getting crazy. We work hard keeping our electric bill down, we average about $75 a month and I know that can seem real low to lots of people but for us as hard as we try we can't do much better. Sure wish I went solar when we built our house. My neighbor has been off the grid for 15+ years and now he's working with a company to market his system. So it just goes to show you that if he can do it up here in Maine it can be done coast to coast.
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You always have a way of putting things into perspective.

It's the same over here for years now. By now the cost for utilities is sometimes higher than the basic rent. For 2 people I have about 55 € (about 83$) for electricity (no air conditions) and about 250€ (about 375$) for the rest, like water, heat, garbage etc. and at the end of the year most of the time I have an additional payment. And I try to save wherever I can, the heat is turned down to minimum when we are away, we use the great living room during winter month not so often, during summer it is not too hot so we don't need aircondition only a fan once in a while, we save water where we can, otherwise the costs would be much higher. If I had a house and a bit of money I'd put solar cells on my roof one for heating the other for producing power. I know a family who has that. They produce much more power than they would need, and sell it to the local electricity company. There is a law that EC has to take it and pay a certain price for it, the contract lasts always 20 years. The price they get is more than the prcie they have to pay, so they sell it all and buy the power (cheaper) back again. This law was made to encourage home owners to build solar roofs. We don't have as much sunshine as other states, but it still works pretty good. The problem I see is, if the electricity copmany has to buy for a higher price than they can sell if too many home owners would do that the price would go rocket high for the others.

Just got this month's bills here - just under $100US for elec, gas & water. And that's with no air con. I was on vacation in Cappadocia last week and it cost about $80 to fill up the tank - coverting from liter to gallon, gas is about $8 a gallon here. Glad we don't own a car and only rent one when on vacation!

Yep, if I convert our price per liter 1,57 € into $ and gallon we pay a little less than 9$ for the gallon, and much more than half of it is taxes.

I really never through I would see the day come when a gallon of gas, a gallon of milk and a pack-o-smokes would all cost about the same.
It's crazy!

Wow, $8 and $9 a gallon for gas!!! and I've been squeaking about $4.20 something. Gives me new appreciation.

A far larger percentage of the price of gas in Europe and other parts of the world is due to higher taxes... which if we were paying as well, would give us a LOT of money to hire workers to fix the roads and bridges and levees in this country.

Higher prices hurt, but they might not be so hurtful if they weren't just lining the pockets of the oil barons.

It's true that taxes are a lot higher in other places. But one thing we found in Finland was that there are benefits that go with the taxes. Finland has something like a 22% sales tax but they have free health care. Their educational system is affordable. Even a half ass-ed college in the States cost more than a lot of people can afford. And it's just getting worse now with the economy shitting the bed and the cost of everything skyrocketing up. If we could see more tangible pluses to where our tax dollars go, maybe it wouldn't seem so bad.

On a side note for folks living in northernly climates, with the cost of heating oil going up, electric heat may soon be a bargain! We heat with wood and even that has gone way up.